Abstract Molecular beam epitaxy growth and analysis of GaAsBi on compositional step-graded InGaAs buffer layers are presented in this study. The developed buffer is only 240 nm thick, exhibits very low surface roughness while reaching up to 0.46% lattice-mismatch with a GaAs substrate. Reciprocal-space mappings showed that 500 nm thick GaAsBi layers with 2.7%–5.3% Bi remain pseudomorphic with the InGaAs buffer, in contrast to GaAsBi grown on GaAs that were found to incur up to 50% lattice relaxation. CuPt_B-type ordering and associated polarized photoluminescence were also found in the bismide layers grown on the InGaAs buffers. Optical anisotropy of a strain-free 2.7% Bi GaAsBi was further analysed by a suite of optical techniques indicating that the valence band splitting is ∼40 meV. This study advances synthesis techniques of thick GaAsBi layers for optoelectronic device applications.